NDLI: Using rhetorical analysis to help undergraduates acquire effective professional writing skills

Content Provider	IEEE Xplore Digital Library
Author	Young, E.F. Alford, E.M.
Copyright Year	1999
Description	Author affiliation: Coll. of Eng., South Carolina Univ., Columbia, SC, USA (Young, E.F.)
Abstract	Rhetorical analysis, a strategy for examining relationships among a writer's purpose, the audience's needs, and the structure of a text, is an effective tool for teaching undergraduates to communicate effectively as engineers. This paper describes a series of writing and research assignments based on rhetorical analysis, which have been used successfully in a mechanical engineering class to guide students in conducting a meaningful literature search and communicating their findings to several audiences. The overall assignment, developed collaboratively by mechanical engineering faculty and writing professionals in the College of Engineering's Professional Communications Center, engages students in deep examination of texts to help them discover principles of professional communications and the genres most common in mechanical engineering. Several steps are involved. Students receive instruction in rhetorical and genre analysis, then use a handout to analyze an article from an ASME journal. Next, students present the highlights of the professional articles to a group of peers and answer their questions. Students then write and submit an abstract to receive approval of a topic before making a third, and final oral presentation. This series of assignments requires students to analyze their own and others' communications rhetorically, exploring decisions writers make in presenting materials to distant and immediate audiences. The assignments also require students to examine their own reading processes as a means of understanding the relationships among the reader, the text, and the writer. The paper describes the assignments and the quality of student's presentations and abstracts. It also provides suggestions for using theories of rhetorical analysis and pedagogy, and genre analysis in teaching undergraduates the subtleties of engineering genres.
File Size	609435
File Format	PDF
ISBN	0780356438
ISSN	01905848
DOI	10.1109/FIE.1999.840322
Language	English
Publisher	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Publisher Date	1999-11-10
Publisher Place	USA
Access Restriction	Subscribed
Rights Holder	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
Subject Keyword	Writing Rhetoric Mechanical engineering Educational institutions Professional communication Education Context Collaboration Art Educational programs
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Education Computer Science Applications Software

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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